Charging plans announced by Tesla to punish idlers

The idea is to stop drivers from leaving their vehicle docked after they’ve finished charging

Charging plans have been announced by Tesla, to punish those drivers who use the Supercharger stations and leave their car docked after they’ve finished charging.

The charge will hopefully encourage Tesla drivers to free-up the Supercharger stations to aid in availability for other road users.

Tesla plans to introduce a fee of 30 pence per minute, which will begin to charge the motorists as soon as their Tesla is fully charged but if the owner turns up within five minutes the fee will be waived.

As there’s no top limit set on the fee charge, idlers could be faced with a huge penalty charge if they leaved their vehicle docked over a long time period.

Tesla owners will able to monitor their charging status via a Tesla app and also receive an alert if an idle fee has been given to them.

The new penalty will only apply to those motorists driving the Model S and X Tesla vehicles, who don’t pay for charging. Owners of the cheapest Tesla model so far, the Model 3, will have to pay to use the Supercharger stations when it’s released next year.

Tesla are planning to see a doubling up on the number of Supercharge stations by the end of 2017 and also improve on the number of lower-speed Destination charging stations.

The company have warned however, that these type of charging stations will end up being “a much scarcer resource” when the Model 3 hits the roads.

The release of several new updates from Tesla are due shortly, which will include a number of activating features, such as auto lane change and auto steer.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, says that further updates will be available each month after the software is released this month.